The Magic School Bus is a series of children's books about science, written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen.
Designed for ages 6-9, they feature the antics of Ms. Valerie Felicity Frizzle and her class, who board a sentient anthropomorphic mini school bus which takes them on field trips to impossible locations, including the solar system, clouds, the past, and the human body.
Craig Walker, vice-president and senior editorial director at Scholastic Co., stated that the concept began with the idea of combining science with fictional stories, and Joanna Cole (who had written both science and humor before) and Bruce Degen were then approached with creating such a series.
Scholastic Entertainment, the American Meteorological Society and the Children's Museum of Houston created a Scholastics the Magic School Bus Kicks Up a Storm, a 2,600 sq ft (240 m2) traveling exhibit funded in part by the National Science Foundation, which premiered at the Children's Museum of Houston in 2003 (a copy of it opened in New Jersey the month after that).
[2] In the original series books, Ms. Frizzle's class had a larger number of multiethnic students and consisted of Alex, Amanda Jane, Arnold, Carlos, Carmen, Dorothy Ann, Florrie, Gregory, John, Keesha, Michael, Molly, Phil, Phoebe, Rachel, Ralph (changed to "Ralphie" on the show and later books in this series), Shirley, Tim and Wanda (19 students).